Community Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired’s (CCBVI‘s) leadership continues to disregard, disrespect and disserve the blind. Please help us call for an end to the decades-long practice by CCBVI of not including the blind in leadership positions and in an integral advisory capacity for the organization. Please stand with the blind of San Joaquin County, sign our petition and help amplify our voices to call for these critical changes in the leadership and toxic, discriminatory environment at CCBVI!

The blind of the Greater San Joaquin County Area seek a true change in leadership and the toxic environment at CCBVI (Stockton, CA). The blind first went public with these concerns in a letter to the editor published in the Stockton Record August 11, 2021, following several years of failed attempts to meet and negotiate with CCBVI. Our public protests began May 17, 2022, following CCBVI‘s continued disregard for our grievances and input, the devastating departure of yet another in a growing line of blind and sighted employees and CCBVI‘s repeated refusal to grant the accommodation request (given well in advance) of an elderly blind client (and CCBVI‘s own appointed “client-board representative”) to be teleconferenced into CCBVI’s annual open board meeting, occurring on Zoom, a platform inaccessible to her. CCBVI has a simple, dial-in, dedicated phone number UberConference system, which they refused to use as an alternative, or to merge her into the Zoom meeting by phone, for the third year in a row. CCBVI’s then interim, now permanent, Executive Director Elsie Hirata did not even provide her the courtesy of a response until well after that May 17, 2022 annual meeting concluded.
The Blind Call for These Changes at Community Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired:
o We demand transparency, accountability, professionalism, compassion and appropriate responsiveness from our Board of Directors and Executive Director at CCBVI.
o We demand: to be allowed to assist in finding, acquiring and vetting a new quality, qualified and professional Executive Director with much stakeholder input, to get fresh blood in the Board of Directors, and the removal of board member/former President Judi Howell from anything further to do with CCBVI.
o We demand: an investigation into CCBVI‘s misconduct, the adoption of proper grievance-resolution processes and employee protections, as well as genuine provisions for blind input and involvement in this blind center at all levels, including on staff, in management, and serving on the board of directors in significant numbers, based on recommendations of blind stakeholders (not administrative appointments).
o We demand: quality, relevant, impactful and robust programs, services and opportunities at CCBVI for the blind of all ages.
o We demand: a quality blind center, equality, opportunity, security and inclusion for the blind of San Joaquin County.
o We demand: an independent forensic audit of CCBVI‘s finances going back at least to 2000, and particularly of how proceeds from the sale of the former building at 130 W. Flora St., Stockton (which we were always told by prior management was a restricted donation, bequeathed by founder Myrtle Stevens Clark for the purpose of being a center for the blind, which was owned outright and a far larger, superior facility, have been best utilized to serve the blind as the Flora St. building sat unused for nearly 4 years getting broken into by the homeless before it was secretly sold in January 2020 (and only disclosed June 8, 2021) while this new office at 2453 Grand Canal Blvd., Ste. 5, Stockton was being rented for thousands of dollars a month since 2016. Clients, staff and the local blind community opposed the move to the rented office and were misled by the previous Executive Director that it would be temporary ‘until the condition of Downtown Stockton improved a bit’. The blind repeatedly inquired on the status of the Flora St. building, and a potential return date, and would have protested more vehemently before the September 2016 move, announced with little notice, if we had suspected administration would (or even legally could) sell our original building.
To date, CCBVI has made no movement nor change. CCBVI’s only responses have been to disparage the blind, give misleading canned responses to the media, to call the police multiple times on peaceful, law-abiding blind protesters and to turn a ‘blind eye’ to the numerous complaints of mistreatment of clients and staff by the Executive Director, Elsie Hirata.
We are asking CCBVI to “Be open, be kind and listen to the blind!” Please sign and share our petition to help bring about these much-needed changes for the blind of the Greater San Joaquin County Area, thank you.